JAKARTA- Indonesia's central bank has bought 82.1 trillion rupiah ($5.63 billion) of government bonds in a private placement, the first transaction under a COVID-19 burden-sharing scheme with the government, Finance Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
Bank Indonesia and the government had agreed on a $40 billion debt monetisation scheme, with the central bank pledging to buy $28 billion of bonds while relinquishing interest payments.
The government has promised faster stimulus spending to tackle the impact of the pandemic. The economy contracted 5.32% year-on-year in the second quarter, the first quarterly contraction in over two decades.
($1 = 14,580.0000 rupiah)
(Reporting by Tabita Diela; Writing by Fransiska Nangoy; editing by John Stonestreet ) ((tabita.diela@thomsonreuters.com; +628111135032;))
